Titusville To Unveil Plans For Astronaut Shrine

TITUSVILLE — A city committee tonight will unveil plans for a 40-foot-wide memorial to the Challenger and Apollo I astronauts at the city's Sand Point Park.

The memorial, expected to cost about $30,000, will be made up of seven stone plaques on the ground for each of the Challenger astronauts. The plaques will surround a 6-foot-tall stone replica of an Apollo space capsule. Attached to the capsule will be plaques for each of the three Apollo I astronauts and a 60-foot flag pole.

Flag and Memorial Committee members hope to get each astronaut's home state to donate a stone for the plaques, which will be engraved with the name of each astronaut, committee Chairperson Jean Seiffert said.

Apollo astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee, who died Jan. 27, 1967, when a fire tore through their spacecraft during a pre- launch test, will be included because a planned memorial never was completed, Seiffert said.

Because of the memorial's significance to local residents who feel close to the space program, Mayor Truman Scarborough asked city officials to schedule a public hearing to get residents' ideas on the proposal tonight at 6 in city hall.

The city plans to unveil the memorial on June 14 as part of its Flag Day celebration.